Rule of Law, not of the masses. This is the foundation of individual
liberty. You are protected from the "Tyranny of the masses" who would deny
you your rights.

American Rule of Law - The American Way

American rule of law is based on the premise that increase in government means
decrease in liberty. That being given, the underlying assumption about American
rule of law is that limits must be placed on government, since the tendency of
government is to grow and grow and grow. Therefore, individual, inalienable
rights are officially recognized as being fundamental to our form of government
and are enumerated in the Bill of Rights which was added to the Constitution so
that as a last resort, people could refer to that document and essentially say
to government, "This is where you may not tread. These are our rights as given
us by our creator and as officially recognized in this document, the Bill of
Rights. Government may not interfere with the following: (see the BoR...)".

Since American Rule of Law is based on immutable principles, some of those being
that individuals are the property of no other individual, that they may as
sovereign individuals own property (but not other human beings) and keep the
fruits of their labor, we see that American rule of law is based on the idea
that the individual is sovereign, that the individual is the master of
government where such individuals band together and make a body of law to which
all agree - inside the framework of the founding documents of the United States,
in the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and Bill of Rights.

American rule of law is designed such that no individuals may interfere with the
life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness of any other individual who has the
same inalienable sovereign rights as any other individual. This is why it reads
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed. "

This passage from the Declaration of Independence, the document that states the
reason why we formed a new government separate from the British Empire,
essentially states with this passage that government ends where inalienable
individual rights begin. Ergo: government exists to serve, not to rule. That
being said, we must wonder why the government has such trouble understanding
this. It's all very simple.

American rule of law is based on principles. Those principles are clearly
defined in our founding documents. Since they're written and they don't say "If
government says so, individuals may claim and/or exercise the following rights,
depending on whether the government hasn't countermanded them...", we have a
body of law that is fixed - although there are always those (in government) who
will try to usurp power and subvert the rule of law (usually in order to grow
government, which is usually for personal gain or ascendancy above his/her
fellows... We'll cover judicial activism
- the creation of law from the judiciary rather than the legislature, later).
That body of law being fixed, we know the rules up front, the rules that we've
all agreed upon and which have passed the test of Constitutionality (unless you
live in Denver, CO).

Of course, we're all aware there are those that say the Constitution should be
"malleable" that it should "change to fit with the times". Beware of those who
would change our form of goverment to one that exists to rule, where the rights
enumerated in the Bill of Rights are no longer inalienable, where those rights
become subject to the whim of those who hold power in government. Our fixed,
written American rule of law is diametrically opposed to this
fiat rule of law, which has no foundation in any
immutable principles, has no constants and is based on documents that give all
power to government which may legislate on the fly, excluding the sovereign
individual from the process of determining his own destiny.

In the American system of government the people rule over government, using a
body of law whereas other forms of government rule over the individuals or
subjects under that form of government and such fiat rule may be carried out by
the dictates of one individual, the dictates of a small group of people or the
will of the masses - who are usually wrong when it comes to any matter of
importance, simply because intelligence is rare and stupidity is the second most
common "element" in the universe after hydrogen. In American rule of law,
everything must fall within the Constitutional framework which limits government
and promotes individual liberty.

Now, we get to the crux of this issue. Above, we have a brief explanation of the
American Way, American Rule of Law and the principles upon which it is based.
Proceeding from the principles that government exists to serve because all
people, all individuals are endowed with inalienable rights, we must contrast
government based on these principles with any other proposed form of government
to ensure that we're not taking a step backward into a form of government whose
purpose is to rule, which may or may not recognize or acknowledge individual
rights. The best way to make such a comparison is on a point by point basis from
the perspective of individual rights.

Hemispherically dominant people who are stuck using only one hemisphere of
their brains are either purely analytical - without context, or they have
nothing but context and are unable to reconcile their worldview with the details
of reality.

The perpetually illiterate are those who cannot continue to refine the dual
cycle of analysis and synthesis to a sufficient level of abstraction where they
begin to see things in a transdisciplinary fashion. -- Anonymous

When you depart from natural law, you haven't gotten anywhere... -- Anonymous